Lone-wolf killersDays before LV shooting, DHS warned of threats by “lone offenders” to public events

On 20 September, only days before the Las Vegas mass shooting, DHS issued an 11-page report warning that “unaffiliated lone offenders, homegrown violent extremists (HVEs), and domestic terrorists ” were one of the biggest threats to large public gatherings. The report did not refer to Las Vegas, but rather noted security concerns about public events – including sports events — in the South-Central areas of the United States.

CNBC reports that the DHS report lists several upcoming public events in the region, including marathons, festivals, fairs, Thanksgiving Day parades, the March Madness Final Four in March 2018, and the South by Southwest festival.

CNBC notes that the DHS report says there was no specific or credible threat identified, but that “we assess that unaffiliated lone offenders, homegrown violent extremists (HVEs), and domestic terrorists pose the most significant near-term threat to special events and mass gatherings in the United States, likely by conducting small-scale simple attacks that do not require significant planning or expertise but could still be potentially fatal and result in numerous casualties.”

The report added that homegrown extremists and lone offenders “are of particular concern due to their ability to remain undetected until operational, their willingness to attack civilians, soft targets and hard targets, and their ability to inflict significant casualties that do not require specialized knowledge, access or training.”

The report continued: “we remain concerned about the sustained interest of international terrorists and violent domestic extremists in targeting these events.”

CNBC notes that the unclassified document — called a “field analysis report” — was prepared to assess potential terrorist threats to mass gatherings and special events in the South-Central region of the U.S. including. Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas

The DHS report noted that between January 2015 and April 2017, there were more than ten attacks or foiled plots by terrorists targeting mass gatherings in the West. Four of the five attacks carried out in 2016 by homegrown violent extremists were against civilians, “demonstrating a continued focus on these targets,” the report said.

The 20 September report is similar to an unclassified, for-official-use-only document from December 2016, issued by DHS and the FBI and which was obtained by Foreign Policy. The “Joint Special Event Threat Assessment” warned of the potential threat of lone offenders targeting mass gatherings in Las Vegas.

The main security concern, the document said, was that unaffiliated lone offenders could take advantage of New Year’s Eve celebrations in the Las Vegas Strip to stage an attack which would be hard to prevent.

“Unaffiliated lone offenders and [homegrown violent extremists] are of particular concern,” the document states, “due to their ability to remain undetected until operational; their willingness to attack civilians and soft targets; their ability to inflict significant casualties with weapons that do not require specialized knowledge, access, or training; and their unpredictability, as witnessed in the Orlando, Florida and San Bernardino, California terrorist attacks.”

FPnotes that the document focuses on the FBI’s and DHS’s concern “about the sustained interest by terrorists and criminals in targeting mass gatherings,” including soft targets like music venues.

The report stressed at time of the writing of the report, law enforcement had “no information to indicate a specific, credible threat to or associated with the America’s Party New Year’s Eve celebration on the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown Las Vegas.”

FPsays that the worry that large public events, whether in Las Vegas or elsewhere, could be a target for terrorists is common sensical – but that the threat assessment does offer insights into how law enforcement try to anticipate threats, and highlights the difficulties in trying to predict the specifics of an attack.

The threat assessment asked Las Vegas-area law enforcement and first responders to pay special attention to several behavioral indicators and report potentially preoperational behavior to the FBI’s Las Vegas office.

FPsays that at the FBI’s request, the magazine is withholding information about the specific indicators.

The December 2016 threat assessment focuses on both criminal and homegrown violent extremist threats, and notes recent attacks on Western targets by al Qaeda, ISIS, and their affiliates.

“Al-Qa’ida, ISIL, and their affiliates remain intent on attacking Western targets and continue to call on individuals to conduct independent attacks in the United States using improvised explosive devices (IED’s) and small arms,” the report states.

Dave Lapan, a DHS spokesman, told FP that “As part of the continuous dialogue with our law enforcement partners, the FBI routinely shares information about potential threats to better enable law enforcement to protect the communities they serve.”

FPasked Lapan whether DHS was limited by law to looking at only terrorist-inspired attacks. Lapan said there no statutory barriers, but that DHS’s intelligence and analysis division “focuses its threat analyses for events on terrorist, not non-terrorist criminal events, unless there is a specific reason for a particular event to widen the scope.”